HaSolelim

A 2004 Israeli place list classifies HaSolelim as a kibbutz in the Western Lower Galilee represented through the Kishon Regional Council.[3] The kibbutz lies slightly south of the HaMovil Junction on Route 77, with access from Route 79.[4] An official Israel Central Bureau of Statistics locality list records central grid reference 2225627395 and locality code 0677 for HaSolelim.[5]

HaSolelim was established in 1949 as the first Jewish settlement in its area of the Lower Galilee.[2] Its founders included Israel-born settlers and other World War II veterans, who were later joined by immigrants from North America.[2] The name HaSolelim—"the pavers"—was chosen to express the founders' aspiration to open the way for new Jewish settlements.[1]

The Yizkor memorial database of the Israel Ministry of Defense states that the kibbutz was established by Palmach members belonging to the Maccabi Hatzair youth movement.[4] Beginning in 1946, they stayed as a work company in Ra'anana to learn agricultural labor and were subsequently joined by members of an American group from Kibbutz Ginegar.[4] A separate Jerusalem Post opinion article says that Mel Reisfield and a Young Judaea garin helped launch HaSolelim.[6] The sources do not establish whether these descriptions refer to the same founding cohort or to different components of it.[6][4]

The international composition of the early community is illustrated by a 1950 photograph taken by photojournalist Rudi Weissenstein.[1] It shows two barefoot young women sitting on a trunk marked "Gladys Ehrlich" and "New York." The woman on the left holds The Florida Times Union, while the woman on the right appears to mend clothing and read over her companion's shoulder.[1] The wooden building, little vegetation, absence of pavements, and single building visible in the background convey the settlement's sparse early conditions.[1]

Recorded population snapshots show substantial growth across the latter half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. HaSolelim had 216 inhabitants in 1968, approximately 305 by the mid-1990s, and 557 at the end of 2002 following expansion.[2] A 2004 Israeli place list recorded 697 inhabitants as of 31 December 2004.[3] An Israel Central Bureau of Statistics locality list records 965 under the column "Population 31.12," although the extracted table does not explicitly identify the population's reference year.[5]

In its early decades, HaSolelim operated along traditional kibbutz lines: collective ownership of property, work distributed according to ability, resources allocated according to need, democratic decision-making, and an economy based primarily on agriculture.[1] In 1969, its principal agricultural branches included fruit orchards, beef cattle, and field crops.[2]

HaSolelim was among the first kibbutzim in Israel to introduce peripheral neighborhoods for nonmembers who wanted a rural lifestyle without joining the collective.[2] The kibbutz later operated as an association maintaining cooperative activities in education, culture, welfare, and security, while also offering guest rooms and an art gallery.[2]

HaSolelim was subsequently privatized, allowing members to hold personal property and receive individual salaries.[1] A 2004 place list classified the kibbutz under OZ, an abbreviation for Ha-Oved ha-Ziyyoni, and listed it with the Kishon Regional Council.[3]

A memorial on a hill within HaSolelim commemorates 19 members of its agricultural-training group who fell during the 1948 War of Independence while the kibbutz was being established.[4] It stands near the water tower and the swimming-pool parking lot; the official listing describes the site as partly accessible and reachable on foot.[4] The Bet Netofah Storage Lake for Israel's National Water Carrier is located near the kibbutz.[2] HaSolelim also maintains a formal archive, designated IL-SLLM-001, catalogued by the National Library of Israel's Archive Network under the Hebrew name ארכיון קיבוץ הסוללים.[7]

Following the October 7 attack, Ran Pauker and his wife, Carmelit, were evacuated to HaSolelim after leaving their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz.[8] The couple had belonged to the earliest pioneering Hashomer Hatza'ir groups that founded Nir Oz in the 1950s.[8] The episode made HaSolelim, itself established by pioneers, a place of refuge for members of another kibbutz's founding generation.